Project “My Fiancée’s” Miata: Part 11 – How to add a Professional Awesome Splitter, an APR Performance Wing, and Improve Your Lap Times
We went with an APR GTC-200 wing to balance out the front splitter. I purchased an extra trunk to make it easy to swap out when the car needed to be in street mode. Notice the risers used to move the wing up. This helps to get the foil into better airflow and also reduce interaction with the trunk, improving efficiency and performance.

 

The GTC-200 allows for significant adjustment, which was needed as we produced more downforce than expected up front! Additionally, the 3D profile allows the wing to perform more efficiently. The center of the foil is angled at a less aggressive degree to compensate for how the cabin changes the angle of the airflow, while the outsides of the foil can be more aggressive as the airflow is closer to parallel to the ground.

With the splitter compete, it was on to the back of the car to install a wing to match the newfound front downforce. When picking a rear wing, you need to know roughly how much front downforce you are balancing against and the weight distribution of the car. The aero balance should match the weight distribution of the car fairly closely. I tend to prefer my aero balance shifted slightly rearwards because high-speed aero oversteer is a little scary! As we all know, a Miata’s weight distribution is roughly 50%/50%, which means our aero balance should closely match. Based on previous experience, we know that our splitter is in the neighborhood of 200 pounds of downforce at 100mph and we went straight to APR Performance to find a wing that matched.

You can more clearly see our risers and the rear Gurney lip option added to the wing for more downforce.

APR provides all of their wings’ data, which makes finding the right wing for the job fairly easy. After discussing a few options with APR, we found a bolt-on option for their GTC-200 wing to a Miata. Mounting was easy, as they provide all the instructions and templates. We installed their added risers and gurney flap to maximize free air performance and add just a touch more downforce to ensure we had a rearward bias.

With our simple aero in place, it was time to hit the track!

2 comments

  1. Massive congrats on upgrading your fiancee and your car! It’s nice watching the car progress from girlfriend’s Miata to wife’s Miata.

  2. Congratulations to you and yours, good sir! Looking forward to seeing what you two decided on, I’m sure it will make for excellent reading material!

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